I must have been eight, maybe nine. That in-between age where the world still feels enormous but begins to take shape in small, sudden ways. My mom took me along on a visit to a friend’s apartment in Hanover, Pennsylvania. She was a college professor, though I didn’t really know what that meant yet. I just remember that her apartment didn’t look like anyone else’s. It was cluttered and colorful and filled with books. A kind of beautiful mess. The air smelled like coffee and incense, and every surface—tables, shelves, even some parts of the floor—was stacked with papers, journals, and mysterious little artifacts from what I assumed were faraway places.
I sat on the floor while they chatted. I remember that clearly—me cross-legged on floorboards, my eyes tracing the edges of a pile of paper next to me. They were student assignments, I realized, marked with red pen. Pages filled with sentences and crossed-out words, suggestions in the margins, underlined passages. It felt like a treasure map, like I’d found something important. Something private and full of potential. I don’t remember the conversation the adults were having. What I remember was the feeling in my chest: This is what I want to do when I grow up.
I wanted to be around writing. I wanted to live in a world where stories were taken seriously, where words mattered, where people shared ideas and someone—like this professor in the bohemian apartment—helped shape them. It was the first time I saw that such a life was possible. That you could have a home filled with books, that you could spend your days reading and helping others find their voices. I didn’t know how or when or even where—but I knew I wanted in.
Now, years later, I’m living that dream. Not in Pennsylvania, but in Bhutan, on a quiet hillside campus overlooking Thimphu. I teach writing to students who are just beginning to find their footing in prose, in argument, in voice. And yes—my weekends are often spent with a cup of coffee and a stack of essays, just like the ones I saw that day in Hanover. Figurative red pen in hand. (Sometimes it’s purple, sometimes green.) Words in progress. Lives opening up on the page.
It’s not always easy. There are deadlines and distractions. But then there are moments—small, bright ones—when a sentence lands with surprising grace. When a student writes something that startles me. I remember that girl on the floor, eyes wide, sensing something sacred in the work.
Thank you, universe. For the long, winding road. For the papers to mark. For the life I once only imagined.
Thimphu, Bhutan, April 2025